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THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

May 10, 1999

REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADY
AFTER WHITE HOUSE STRATEGY SESSION
ON CHILDREN, VIOLENCE AND RESPONSIBILITY

The Rose Garden

2:06 P.M. EDT

MRS. CLINTON: Thank you, all. I think everyone who participated in the meeting
this morning came away with the positive feeling that there isnt any
problem that we face when it comes to our young people, that if were
honest enough to talk about it we can come up with ideas about how to address
it, and we can better empower all parts of our society to be part of the solution.

To that end, the President mentioned that we want to have a national campaign
to prevent youth violence. Its modeled on the national campaign against
teenage pregnancy, the national campaign that was launched to convince employers
to hire people coming off of welfare to go to work. Its in the greatest
of American traditions of the kind of public-private partnership that is unique
to our country.

And in the next weeks that campaign will be put together. It will be a not-for-profit,
501-C3 effort that will bring together many of the people around the table
today in the East Room and many others. It will come forward, we hope, with
very specific suggestions about what parents can do, what schools can do,
what community groups can do, what the media can do, what gun manufacturers
can do, what all of us can do.

You probably know that I really do think it takes a village; but my book
had a subtitle, and that was, it takes a village to raise a child and other
lessons children teach us. And the most important lesson I think all of us
are learning, once again because of the tragedy in Littleton and the consequences
that flow from that, are that we have to do a better job doing our most important
job, and that is helping to raise our children and create a climate in our
country that is good for children.

We have to battle a lot of attitudes and cynicism and skepticism and hopelessness
and helplessness, and a sense by many people that the forces that are arrayed
against families and children are just too big to try to deal with, and maybe
the only thing we can do is just shut the doors of our own home and try to
deal with what goes on there. But we have to do that as well.

So Im very encouraged by the conversation that we had this morning,
and Im very excited about the prospects for this national campaign.
And I hope that everyone, everyone in America, will realize that theres
a role for each of us in trying to prevent youth violence. And more than thattrying
to reach out and listen to our children so that we can provide the kind of
support that they need.

And someone who has known that and done it in her own life, and done it in
our public life for many years, who has continually addressed the issue of
mental health and particularly how it affects childrensomeone who I
admire greatly and who will be chairing the first ever White House Conference
on Mental Health on June 7 -- and that is Tipper Gore. (Applause.)